Office of Arts & Culture news and events

Calling all galleries, artists’ studios, theaters, cinemas, music halls, clubs, sound stages, recording studios, bookstores, lecture halls, maker-spaces, meetspaces … in short, calling all arts and culture spaces of any kind in Seattle: we’re embarking on a project to inventory our city’s cultural space, and we want to hear from you. Take part in our inventory of arts and cultural spaces via an online survey, or email Melody.Kadlub-Barr@seattle.gov.

Additionally, we want you to know that our office now has a resource dedicated to you and your cultural space needs. Our cultural space liaison, Matthew Richter, is eager to hear about your square footage concerns. What are the issues you’re working through? Do you need help navigating city departments? Are you on the hunt for space? Looking to fund facility renovations?

Whether you’re a building owner looking to work with an arts group, an arts group looking for a building (or anywhere in between) our office now has the capacity to support your work. Let us know what keeps you up at night by emailing matthew.richter@seattle.gov. We look forward to hearing from you!

Would you like to join our team? We’re seeking that rare person who possesses the kind of excellent editing and writing skills that can turn a page of government-speak into a comprehensible (and interesting!) blog post, and who can also connect and interact with our community over our social media, effectively broadening our audience and making new friends.

Our office is going through some major growth and we have tons of exciting projects – our arts education initiative with Seattle Public Schools is launching this fall, we have a new staff position dedication to cultural space and we’re planning a fall event around that work, and we are continuing to work with other city departments to find ways to incorporate arts into the new Waterfront plan. And that’s along with supporting our thriving public art team as they integrate art and the ideas of artists into the city’s capital projects, and our funding team in their quest to best support the city’s artists and cultural organizations.

We need somebody who is fast, reliable, loves the idea of making Seattle an even better place to be an artist and enjoy the arts, and can sit down, put on the headphones and crank out five blog articles in an afternoon. This person will love finding new ways to showcase the work of the office (and the work of the artists and organizations we support) via online platforms, and will also know the AP style guide backwards and forwards. Also, a sense of humor would be lovely.

Are you our unicorn? The position is open until Sept. 10. Apply today!

We’re really excited to be finally launching a project that’s been a long time in the making: an app for smartphones for our public art collection. The app is called STQRY (pronounced “story”) and is available on iOS, Android and Windows 8 operating systems for free. Right now you’ll find 50 works of art from Seattle’s collection, including nearly 25 at Seattle Center, and the rest along the central Seattle and Waterfront neighborhoods. We will continue to add works as we go, and grow the online collection.

The piece that’s really cool about this app is that a number of local arts agencies are using it – so if you download it, you’ll be rewarded with public art from not just Seattle’s collection, but from 4Culture (King County’s Public Art Authority), ArtsWA (Washington state’s collection), City of Redmond (public art and events), City of Kent (public art), City of Sammamish (public art, parks, facilities), and Renton History Museum (exhibits and City of Renton public art). And there are more agencies and organizations in the pipeline.

The app will help you locate new works of art via a GPS system that can tell you what’s nearby, and also has a QR (hence the “qr” in STQRY) code scanner, so you can find out more about a work of art that you happen upon. Information includes a history, artist statement, historic images if available and sometimes even video.

We love presenting new ways for the public to engage with our public art collection. Let us know what you think of the platform, and make sure to download STQRY to your device.

With hundreds of Washington school board positions up for election this fall, voters have a critical opportunity to select leaders who are committed to providing the high quality, sequential arts learning that every student deserves (and that the law requires)! But how will you know which candidates support arts education?

ArtsEd Washington is sponsoring a School Board Candidate Survey on Arts Education.

ArtsEd Washington is asking every concerned arts advocate in every school district to sign on as a smARTS Champion, pledging to ask their school board candidates to complete the survey and make their positions known. ArtsEd Washington will then post their responses online for voters to consider before making their school board decisions.

Become a smARTS Champion!

The Office of Arts & Culture is joining ArtsEd Washington in this effort. We encourage you to join a team of engaged education and arts advocates in asking your School Board Candidates to go on the record on arts education. Your participation helps your candidates to understand that the arts are an important part of each child’s education. Register to be a smARTS Champion in your district and ArtsEd Washington will make it easy – helping you access your candidate info, an email template, and a link to the survey. Enroll to participate at www.artsedwashington.org.

Jeffrey Simmons is one of 33 artists whose work was recently purchased by Seattle Public Utilities to be including in their Portable Works Collection. His watercolor painting Palindrome III is currently being exhibited as part of Atmospheric Weather, a two-part exhibition at the Seattle Municipal Tower showing the newest additions to Seattle Public Utilities’ collection. The first exhibition runs through August 13.

Simmons documented the creation of Palindrome III in this series of photos. The first image, which is at the bottom of the page, was taken just over a week into the four-week process. Before painting, Simmons made a preparatory drawing. The preparatory drawing for Palindrome III can’t be seen in the photo series because it is covered by panels; however, one can view an image of a preparatory drawing used for a painting similar to Palindrome IIIhere.

Simmons utilized an intermediate tracing to locate each circle, which looked like this. In order to give some insight into how the actual painting process worked, Simmons created a time lapse video showing himself using his tabletop easel to create a watercolor painting similar to Palindrome III, which can be viewed here.

Atmospheric Weather is a two-part exhibition of the 48 new artworks in Seattle Public Utilities’ Portable Works Collection. The work of 33 different artists is featured, and the exhibition explores the ambience of weather conditions as a theme. The first exhibition opened on July 3 and will run through August 13. The second exhibition runs from August 15 – September 30. Both exhibitions take place on the 3rd floor of the Seattle Municipal Tower.

*Update: Fire Station 9 will hold an open house on Saturday, November 2 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Please join us for an opportunity to see Nine Lives up close, meet the artist and tour the station. Fire Station 9 is in Fremont at 3829 Linden Ave N., Seattle*

Nine Lives, a colossal sculpture of a cat perched at the edge of the roof ready to join his crew on their next life-saving mission, is Fire Station 9’s new distinctive identifying symbol. The artwork, measuring 10’x19’x2’, was created by local artist Peter Reiquam out of powder coated aluminum, blown glass and LED lighting.

Fire Station 9 is located in Fremont at 3829 Linden Ave N., Seattle. Please note that the fire station is not yet open. Fire Station 9 is currently operating out of a temporary location at 3500 Interlake Avenue North.

Peter Reiquam is a Seattle-based artist whose site-integrated works range from flying saucers and giant corn stalks to sculptural furniture and bulldog weathervanes. He strives to create work that is stylized yet familiar, that speaks to the particular character of its site and to do so with a balance of humor, elegance and sophistication. The artworks encourage viewer interaction and contain a conceptual narrative that responds to the architecture, landscape and culture of a given site.

Peter received his MFA in sculpture from Yale University in 1984, and has been creating public art projects for nearly 30 years. He has completed public commissions for the Washington State Arts Commission, the City of Kent and Sound Transit among other agencies as well as numerous projects outside of the Puget Sound region.

Commissioned in 2008 with the Department of Finance and Administrative Services. Administered by the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture.

Projects vary across media and are located throughout Seattle neighborhoods. Yesler Rec-Techwill work with 18 youth to produce an archival work about Yesler Terrace neighborhood through digital photography and video sessions taught by five artists and scholars. There will be a public screening and exhibit following the production of their work. Jazz Night School will offerintroductory and intermediate improvisational and ensemble jazz classes to 25 teen girls over the summer, to be followed by a public concert with the students and their Jazz Big Sisters. 826 Seattlewill provide three artists to guide ten Spanish-speakingteens through essay, memoir and college essay writing, as well as audio production and photography. Lauren Marshall, a theatre specialist, will encourage communications skill development for eight youth with Asperger syndrome, autism or ADHD through theater games, scripting and improvisation.

Youth Arts offers awards up to $10,000 annually to programs in which experienced teaching artists lead training programs in all arts disciplines throughout the city, with priority placed on serving youth and communities with limited or no access to the arts. It’s estimated the 2013-14 funded projects will engage more than 5,400 youth in about 18,300 hours of arts training.

The Office of Arts & Culture has been working on the issue of cultural space for many years (recent documents have come to light showing that it was actually one of the first initiatives of the Seattle Arts Commission (SAC) when they were formed in the early 1970s). More recently, the SAC committee on finance and economic development has been moving the issue forward with their work on Cultural Space Seattle forum in 2011 and the follow up event in 2012 along with guiding policy issues and resources. We’re thrilled to announce that we are now able to add a staff position to support this work so that we can move it forward on a day-to-day level.

Our new cultural space liaison will serve as a project manager and liaison with various city departments like the Department of Planning and Development for work on city codes and policies in place for the development and maintenance of cultural spaces within the city, and will also launch a new space finder tool that will connect artists and arts organizations to available spaces for development, rehearsal, or presentation of their work. The position will also promote the economic activity generated by arts and cultural activities; and educate citizens, property owners and developers on the importance of the arts regarding property values and neighborhood character.

It’s a big job. And we’ve hired a great person to do it: arts entrepreneur, Matthew Richter has founded and directed successful nonprofit arts organizations, including the Rm 608 Gallery for Visual and Performing Arts and the Consolidated Works contemporary arts center. He served on the boards of Allied Arts and the National Arts and Technology Network, and has lectured at the University of Washington and Seattle University. Matthew comes to us most recently as the program manager of Shunpike’s Storefronts, a community and neighborhood support program that places artists and arts projects into vacant storefronts spaces in Seattle and cities around the Pacific Northwest.

Matthew has extensive cultural space experience: he has launched, directed, and completed three major capital campaigns to build arts facilities, the most recent of which, a $500,000 campaign for Consolidated Works, created a 32,000 square foot contemporary arts facility in a 1944 warehouse in South Lake Union, containing a 150-seat theater, a 50-seat cinema, a 4,000 square foot gallery, a 300-person music and lecture hall, three artist-in-residence studios, six offices for fellow nonprofits, a full bar and lounge, an arts resource room, and rehearsal and meeting spaces. Additionally, he has commissioned and produced over 20 world-premiere mainstage theater performances, and three short films and was the co-producer of 14/48, the world’s quickest theater festival, for almost a decade.

We’re thrilled to welcome Matthew aboard and continue our work in the area of cultural space.

Guess what – it’s our birthday! 40 years ago today the city signed the ordinance that specifies that 1% of eligible city capital improvement project funds be set aside for the commission, purchase and installation of artworks. Seattle was one of the first cities in the United States to adopt a percent-for-art ordinance in 1973. For 40 years, our public art program has integrated artworks and the ideas of artists into a variety of public settings, advancing Seattle’s reputation as a cultural center for innovation and creativity.

Here’s a couple of images to celebrate. Let us know what your favorite work of public art is.

It’s my great pleasure to announce that Seattle’s arts office has a new brand, complete with new logo and tagline and perhaps best of all, a (slightly) revised name: Office of Arts & Culture Seattle.

Personally, I’m really excited about this project because I believe that our office is doing great, fantastic work in our community – we’re working to make Seattle a better place to be an artist, work at a cultural organization and enjoy the abundance of art offerings our city produces. But when I started here, I didn’t feel like we were telling that story well enough. Our logo had (admittedly) been designed without much process and our name was clunky and so hard to say that most people shorted it to the acronym “OACA” (pronounced something like “o-walk-a”), which if you hear without reference sounds a bit like somebody sneezing.

How we got to this point was confusing as well: originally we started out as the Seattle Arts Commission in 1971. In the 2000s we moved to Mayor’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs, and then several years later Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. And here we are changing it again – but this time I believe we’re acting on a more strategic decision. We’re getting rid of “affairs” (no need to sound pretentious) and presenting a logo that takes it down to the basics – A & C for Arts and Culture. We also have a new tagline, “Making Art Work,” that encompasses both what we do as well as our attitude.

While I’m incredibly proud of this new brand system for our office, at the end of the day a logo is just a stand-in for the product and service that it represents. So we’re going to get back to work supporting the artists and organizations that make Seattle a special place. I hope you keep an eye out for the new mark and if you do, let us know where you saw it and how it looks.

And if you’re talking about us in the community, I beg of you: please call us the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, or if you have to shorten it, Seattle’s Arts Office. If I never again hear “OACA,” this project will be a success.

– Calandra Childers, Communications Manager

P.S. If you are a partner organization looking to update your materials, you can find every possible size/color combo/file type of the new logo here.